After reading some journal entries about weather we care about pronouncing foreign people's names correctly, I'd love to share my own experience and opinion.
I used to study abroad to learn porcelain painting both in the States and Italy. I can communicate with people in English, but my Italian is way poor than my English. So, even though I was studying in Italy, most of my conversations were in English.
I have a good friend named Virginia in Italy, whom I met in our mutual porcelain painting teacher's class. Since I don't understand Italian and she doesn't know English, we mostly communicated through body language or with the help of our teacher's daughter, who acted as my interpreter. When she introduced Virginia to me, she warned me to say, "Be careful when you pronounce her name." Since she didn't explain the reason, I didn't understand what she exact meant it.
One day, my classmates and I including Virginia went to a restaurant for lunch. The restaurant was packed, and I was the first person to find an empty table. Although I'm not short in Japan, compared to Westerners I'm kind of short. So, to call my friends over, I stood on a chair and called out my friend name, Virginia with waving my hand. "Virginia! Here!!! We have seats!!!!" Then, all of a sudden, everybody started at me. I realized that I did something wrong. Virginia and my other friends were laughing.
Once they reached the table, one of them who could speak a bit of English explained what I did. I had pronounced her name like "vagina"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness! My American mixing Japanese accented English pronunciation of Virginia sounded very close to vagina to them, lol. I was extremely embarrassed. As an Asian woman suddenly standing on a chair called out vagina, definitely it was obvious getting people's attention.
Since then, I've been very careful about pronouncing names, especially, Virginia. I make sure to use the Italian pronunciation .
Reflecting on my experience, I believe it's better to pronounce people's names the way they do. If we don't know the language well, it's hard for us to guess how our pronunciation sounds to native speakers .
Very interesting and fun
@druida Thank you for reading! I'm sure you can guess it very well because when people speak Spanish, they understand Italian too.
Very funny. You wouldn't have had this problem in Spain because in Spanish, vagina is pronounced [bahína] 😜
In case anyone had any doubts about the importance of pronunciation, this post will surely dispel them. I can only applaud this post once, but if I could I'd do it five times. Best post on language learning I've read so far.
Besides, what's the point of putting effort into learning hundreds, if not thousands, of words in our target languages - both their meaning and pronunciation - and then butchering proper nouns? Proper nouns are also words and therefore part of the language.
@Coral I think you missed the point. This is about people who aren't learning the foreign language and are expected to know how to pronounce names in it. That was the point of Linda's original question.
Esa es tú interpretación, Julián. Hay muchas formas de verlo.
Esa es *tu interpretación, *Uly. 😉
@LindasLinguas In your original question to me, were you referring to people who are actually studying the target language pronouncing names correctly in that target language, or to people in general who don't necessarily know the language?
This story is gold🤣
@Coral "Julían" parece una combinación de Uly y María José, jajaja Somos uno tú y yo!)))
@Coral, @CocoPop, @Lariza Thank you so much for taking a time to read my post and gave me such compliment. I have one more embarrassing story in English. When I have some spare time, I want to share it here too. I love laughing at my mistakes, lol because we can learn from our mistakes and we never ever forget them.
I can't wait!
@yumiyumayume, I really enjoyed reading your story which came to mind when reading my original question! Thanks for sharing and I agree that it's important that we can laugh about ourselves.
I also agree with @Coral that proper pronunciation is important!
Those of you who either understand German or can use a translator tool like deepl.com might enjoy this story that happened in Germany due to pronunciation problems caused by a dialect: https://rp-online.de/panorama/saechsin-muss-falsch-gebuchten-flug-nach-bordo-zahlen_aid-14088811
@CocoPop, I guess I kind of meant both situations.
@LindasLinguas I think people who are studying a language have a better chance of pronouncing names in that language, but those who have no clue are going to resort to their own sounds — especially older people who are less "flexible" in that respect. It's a bit naive to expect an entire populace to acquire an accurate foreign pronunciation.
@CocoPop, Well, I believe, naive or not, that speaking about pronunciation, especially of names, ultimately makes people more aware of differences in the pronunciation of different names. I don't expect anybody to master all pronunciation systems of all the languages around the world, but I'd like to encourage people to ask for the correct pronunciation of a foreigner's name because it can be a very nice conversation opener even if you have to ask 5 or more times until you remember it. It might also help the foreigner interact with your native language's phonetics and help them learn your language better if they happen to live in your country.
I once met a Turkish dude and he introduced himself like this: "Hallo, ich heiße Himmet, wie Himmel, nur mit t." (Hello, my name is Himmet, like "Himmel" (sky), but with a t.) and for me it was really cool because this way I could remember his name more easily :)
Oh, you’re talking about personal encounters and I was thinking more of the general populace pronouncing names of foreign heads of state, for instance. Yeah, if it’s someone you’re going to deal with directly, you should definitely get some guidance from them as to what they like to be called.
@LindasLinguas Thank you so much for reading my post and leaving the comment!
@LindasLinguas .Thanks for explaining, Linda. I'm with you. I don't think you're naïve. You're polite.
@yumiyumayume. Yumi, again, best post on language learning ever. Still makes me laugh.
Thank you, @Coral, lol. I'm glad you like this.
@LindasLinguas Obviously, I meant that it’s generally naive, not that you’re naive. Coral’s been drinking the hatorade again 😂
What the hell is hatorade? Dare I ask? 🫣
hahahaha Funny you should ask! As we all know, Gatorade is a drink that gives athletes energy. Well, hating is exhausting too, so when haters need to refuel, Hatorade supplies them with all the energy they need to keep on hating 😵💫
@CocoPop, I know that you meant the naiv generally, but somehow I still felt the need to comment on it. To be honest, oftentimes I feel it's hard to transmit our intentions when discussing things in written form. Emojis help, but does the lack of emojis mean someone's dead serious? Not necessarily. And it also depends on the mood we're in when reading the comments...
@Simone-, I guess this is one of the jokes which is hard to grasp for Europeans who are not fully immersed in the pop culture from across the ocean. As far as I know, they don't sell Gatorade in Europe.
@yumiyumayume, My pleasure! It was a very entertaining read!
@LindasLinguas I assumed you realized that I meant naïve in general, but when it was suggested otherwise, I felt I had to clarify. I'm a big fan of emojis and I use them extensively to avoid misunderstandings. That comment was dead serious, but not directed at you personally.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hatorade
@LindasLinguas Linda, I guess Italy isn't part of Europe then😅. We have gatorade here in Italy. It's been here as long as I can remember.
@Simone-, well, I have to admit that I've never been to Italy, only some European countries where I haven't noticed the beverage 🙈
https://marketrealist.com/food-industry/us-foods-banned-other-countries/
Damn, I didn't know that. I did say "as long as I can remember". My memory failed me, sigh. I'll tell you what. I'm going to check out various grocery stores and see if they sell Gatorade🤣.